Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Plotinus, Galileo Galilei and Jrgen Habermas

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3 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
To understand a statement is to know what would make it acceptable [Habermas]
     Full Idea: We understand the meaning of a speech act when we know what would make it acceptable.
     From: Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981], I:297), quoted by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:37
     A reaction: Finlayson glosses this as requiring the reasons which would justify the speech act.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 3. Meaning as Speaker's Intention
Meaning is not fixed by a relation to the external world, but a relation to other speakers [Habermas, by Finlayson]
     Full Idea: On Habermas's view, meanings are not determined by the speaker's relation to the external world, but by his relation to his interlocutors; meaning is essentially intersubjective.
     From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:38
     A reaction: This view is not the same as Grice's, but it is clearly much closer to Grice than to (say) the Frege/Davidson emphasis on truth-conditions. I'm not sure if I would know how to begin arbitrating between the two views!
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use
To understand language is to know how to use it to reach shared understandings [Habermas]
     Full Idea: One simply would not know what it is to understand the meaning of a linguistic expression if one did not know how one could make use of it in order to reach understanding with someone about something.
     From: Jürgen Habermas (On the Pragmatics of Communications [1998], p.228), quoted by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:34
     A reaction: Not offered as a 'theory of meaning', and certainly plausible. Compare a hammer, though: a proper understanding is that it is used to exert a sharp force, but you can take in its structure and nature before you spot its usage.